Save Article

Middle Kingdom Millennials

A generation made up of solitary princes and princesses who bore all of the “wishes that their parents missed out on in the Mao years.” Howard W. French reviews “Wish Lanterns: Young Lives in New China” by Alec Ash.

By

Howard W. French

April 20, 2017 6:40 p.m. ET

Since China opened itself up to the outside world over four decades ago, Western journalists have written so many books about their lives in that country as to constitute their own genre. Among these are books about life among native classmates at Chinese universities, about the challenge of learning a notoriously difficult language, about teaching English in out-of-the-way towns, and about finding oneself and falling in love in the rapidly molting social landscape of contemporary China.